Typhoon death toll rises to 34

The death toll from Typhoon Aere today rose to 34 after a mudslide killed 15 villagers in Taiwan and five people were reported to have died in the Philippines.

The typhoon reached mainland China late yesterday. State television showed footage of strong winds and pounding rain, with cars ploughing through flooded streets.

However, the evacuation of almost one million people in mainland China appears to have prevented a worse disaster because, despite the onslaught, no fatalities had been reported. One man was, however, reported missing in the Zhejiang province in eastern China.

The typhoon is now losing intensity, and the BBC reported that it had been downgraded to a tropical storm heading further south from the south-eastern province of Fujian to Guangdong.

But it is Taiwan - where up to 1.5 metres (4.9ft) of rain has fallen in the past 60 hours - that has been worst hit. A mudslide in the remote northern mountain village of Wufeng buried the 24 homes there in only 10 seconds, claiming 15 lives.

Rescuers were today struggling to reach the village following the landslide. Helicopters were sent to airlift food and water to around 800 residents trapped at Wufeng and the nearby town of Janshih, where roads were cut off.

Typhoon Aere - Aere means storm in the language of the Marshall islands in the Pacific - is the second strongest storm to hit China this season. Earlier this month, Typhoon Rananim killed 164 people and devastated the southern Chinese coast.

Authorities put the minimal casualties from this week's storm down to the evacuation of 930,000 people from low-lying and coastal areas. More than 40,000 fishing boats were called back to port, and flights in the region were cancelled.

Local officials said that, although destructive, the storm had helped ease severe drought in the area. Millions of pounds worth of damage has, however, been done to agriculture.

The storm also brought heavy rains that swamped parts of the Philippine capital, Manila, where at least five people drowned and three were missing. Three members of a family were injured after being hit by a mudslide in the hilly city of Antipolo.

Philippine officials suspended work in government offices, today cancelling school for a second day because of heavy rains. Almost 16,000 people were evacuated from homes engulfed in floodwaters, the officials said.

A swollen river near the northern province of Nueva Ecija blocked traffic on a main road and stranded hundreds of commuters overnight, officials said.

Meanwhile today, Typhoon Chaba was building up in the western Pacific, and was forecast to hit the southern Japanese islands of Kyushu by Sunday or Monday.